The electrochemical polishing device with which the invention is concerned may make use of a tool electrode comprising an electrically conductive body portion having electrically nonconductive minute projections provided uniformly on the working surface thereof. Such a tool electrode may typically be coupled detachably to a tool holder designed for hand-held or portable use of the device, the tool holder being in turn associated with an electrolyte supply unit which feeds a polishing electrolyte from a reservoir to the region of a workpiece surface to be polished through the interior of both the tool electrode and the holder which are in communication, with one another. The tool electrode has one terminal connected to the negative terminal of a unidirectional current source whose positive side is led through a conductor to a terminal conductively attached to the workpiece so that material may electrolytically be removed from the workpiece surface confronting the tool electrode to polish the workpiece. In conventional electro-chemical polishing systems of this type, the power supply used is commonly a direct-current or pulsating-current supply. While the use of shaped discrete pulses has been proposed and is known in the art of electro-chemical machining as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,654,116, the duration of pulses used in the prior art is relatively long.